Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Boys of My Youth.. part 1

Last night I finished my book club book for this month, "The Boys of My Youth." I won't get too into it since I want to save that for after my book club, but I really enjoyed it. It wasn't what I expected and yet it was still fantastic. Very well written, shocking, sad, and yet comforting, too. And familiar despite the fact that in many, many, ways the author's life is very different from my own. But I loved this last bit (not entirely a plot spoiler, but it is sort of a spiritual-ending-of-the-book spoiler, so as a warning -- Sarah, I'm looking at you), when she and her best friend from middle school are listening to a voicemail from a new man in her life:

"Hi, Jo Ann, this is X," he says and then leaves a long, rambling, totally coherent message and hangs up. Oh man. He's shimmering in my living room like a genie released from a bottle.I don't know whether to faint or kill myself. Elizabeth laughs unbecomingly. I put both hands around my own neck. We do our silent screaming routine. We are no longer bored.

I feel pretty good about the women in my life these days, and I think it's in small part to moments like that one. I guess maybe all of us feel that way, at least sometimes, but maybe it's all the time, and maybe it never goes away, and I'll feel that way when I'm 50 as much as I do now. I think that is comforting... it's sort of scary, but comforting, just because I'm not alone.